Sunday, March 2, 2014

Hate Speech by Anti-Gay Bigots Ted Kennedy, The National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Coalitions for America, People for the American Way, just to name a few

Amazing how much things have changed. Democrat Ted Kennedy has passed but where are The National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Coalitions for America, People for the American Way today?

Editor’s Note: This is the text of Senator Ted Kennedy’s
opening statement before the Committee on the Judiciary at the hearing on the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act, September 18, 1992, the model for the
Arizona law which has been so controversial.

We will come to order. The brave pioneers who founded
America came here in large part to escape religious tyranny and to practice
their faiths free from government interference. The persecution they had
suffered in the old world convinced them of the need to assure for all
Amer­icans for all time the right to practice their religion unencumbered by
the yoke of religious tyranny.

That profound principle is embodied in the two great
religion clauses of the first amendment, which provide that Congress “shall
make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.” But in 1990, the Supreme Court’s decision in Oregon
Employment Division v. Smith produced a serious and unwarranted setback for the
first amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion.

Before the Smith decision, Federal, State, and local
governments were prohibited from interfering with people’s ability to practice
their religion unless the restriction satisfied a difficult two-part test —
first, that it was necessary to achieve a compelling govern­ment interest; and,
second, that there was no less burdensome way to accomplish the goal.

The compelling interest test has been the legal standard
protect­ing the free exercise of religion for nearly 30 years. Yet, in one fell
swoop the Supreme Court overruled that test and declared that no special
constitutional protection is available for religious liberty as long as the
Federal, State, or local law in question is neutral on its face as to religion
and is a law of general application. Under Smith, the Government no longer had
to justify burdens on the free exercise of religion as long as these burdens
are “merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid
provision.”

The Supreme Court did not have to go that far to reach its
result in the Smith case. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote of the
majority’s ruling in her eloquent and forceful opinion concurring in the result
but criticizing the majority’s reasoning,

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Senator Hatch
and I, and 23 other Senators have introduced, would restore the compelling
interest test for evaluating free exercise claims. It would do so by
establishing a statutory right that adopts the stand­ards previously, used by
the Supreme Court. In essence, the act codifies the requirement for the
Government to demonstrate that any law burdening the free exercise of religion
is essential to fur­thering a compelling governmental interest and is the least
restric­tive means of achieving that interest.

The act creates no new rights for any religious practice or
for any potential litigant. Not every free exercise claim will prevail. It
simply restores the long-established standard of review that had worked well
for many years and that requires courts to weigh free exercise claims against
the compelling State interest standard. Our bill is strongly supported by an
extraordinary coalition of or­ganizations with widely differing views on many
other issues. The National Association of Evangelicals, the American Civil
Liberties Union, the Coalitions for America, People for the American Way, just
to name a few, support the legislation. They don’t often agree on much, but
they do agree on the need to pass the Religious Free­dom Restoration Act
because religious freedom in America is damaged each day the Smith decision
stands.

Today, the committee will hear compelling testimony about
the destructive impact of the decision. We are fortunate to have a very
distinguished group of witnesses and I look forward to their testi­mony.

— Senator Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.) served in the U.S. Senate
from 1962–2009. He was the fourth-longest-serving senator when he died.